More than 7500 peasant families in Maputo province may be facing starvation following the flooding of their cultivated areas.

More than 11,000 hectares of various crops are currently under water due to the Pequenos Libombos dam and the rising water levels of the Maputo, Umbelúzi, and Incomáti rivers.

The floods affected most of the corn, peanut, bean, tuber and sugarcane crops in the districts of Manhiça, Matola, Matutuíne, Marracuene and Magude.

The Head of the Planning Department at the Directorate of Agriculture and Fisheries in Maputo, Mariamo José, explains that as a way to reverse the situation, some seeds have already been distributed to the affected peasant families.

In addition to flooded cultivation areas, there is a record of about a thousand hectares of pastureland also being submerged, and carracicidal bathing tanks destroyed, following the floods.